6.2.3 |
POLITICO-IDEOLOGICAL EXCLUSIVISM |
People can be discriminated for or against on the basis of any factor
related to their having or not having a certain attribute or relation.
Such a predicate may be a proper
whole-predicate or a
part-predicate.
To discriminate for or against people as people is to discriminate between
them on the basis of a personal whole-predicate. To discriminate between
them on the basis of a physical part-predicate is, strictly speaking, not
to discriminate between people but to discriminate between bodies.
From the point of view of well-being or
happiness-catenality
discrimination on the basis of a physical characteristic such as ancestry
('blood', 'purity'), skin color, gender or sexual orientation is
more serious than discrimination on the basis of a mental or
personal characteristic such as belief in what a political or
religious organization claims to be true, if the former type of
discrimination causes more unhappiness than the latter. But it
might also be the other way around.
The
gravity of an irrelevant
distinction is not solely determined by the suffering or
unhappiness it causes (or, if it is, there is more which
counts).
That is why
the norm of inclusivity is an independent
norm besides
the principle of well-being.
Apart from this aspect, the discrimination of people (not bodies)
on the basis of a personal characteristic is in a way more
serious than on the basis of a physical or body-related characteristic.
Discrimination and inequality in the socioeconomic field does not only
concern the social and economic forms of discrimination and inequality
which are, or have been, legal in certain countries, and to which groups
are liable distinguished on the basis of their race, gender,
denominational persuasion or
other characteristics.
It also concerns the discrimination of groups with a particular
politico-economic
ideology.
In politically highly exclusivistic societies every political party with a
different ideology than the 'official' one is outlawed, or at least the
kind of party that advocates a socioeconomic system which
deviates from the established one to a substantial degree. Those
whose political convictions deviate from the official ideology
form, or did form, a special group often discriminated against,
and often even legally excluded from civil equality. Also the
alienation from these people causes ignorance and bias, and also
in this way the arguments for the exclusion which resulted in
that alienation are confirmed (possibly even accentuated by an
unjustified militant behavior of members of the oppressed
group).
To exclude people on the basis of such political convictions is not just
to exclude their bodies, as in the case of
familial,
racial or
sexual
exclusivism, but to exclude them as
persons.
This is not to say that it would be easier in
practise to
establish that people's ideological convictions are irrelevant than to
establish that their race or sexuality are irrelevant.
When we discussed thought-related subanthropic exclusivism
it was already pointed out that it may be 'highly relevant' to
make a distinction between systems of thought, while it is not
relevant to make a distinction between the people who espouse
these systems. (See 2.5.1.) But if,
purportedly, 'all' people of one nation, ethnic group or race espouse
one system of thought, and 'all' people who do not belong to that nation,
ethnic group or race another, the distinction drawn between the systems
of thought concerned may appear to be a distinction drawn between
the nation, ethnic group or race concerned and all other people.
Racialists and nationalists who are not capable of judging
people free from their skin color or nationality are often not
capable of judging a political, religious or other ideology free
from the human beings adhering to it either. Yet, this does not
mean that antiracialists and antinationalists have to display
the same lack of critical insight. We can completely reject or
thoroughly criticize an ideology even when it is only adhered to
by people of one ethnic group or nation, provided that ethnicity
or nationality are not the reasons for the rejection or
objections. (That is why we shall not yield to the cheap
immunization strategy of those who claim that everyone who
attacks their group's beliefs must be a racialist, ethnocentrist
or nationalist.)
What we are concerned with here is not even the rejection of
ideologies for substantive reasons but the exclusion of people
themselves because of their convictions, especially by the
state. Countries where people are murdered, injured, tortured,
imprisoned or spited because of their political ideas, for instance,
are clearly antidemocratic in that they do not respect
people's rights, and clearly exclusivistic in that they discriminate
on the basis of political ideology adhered to.
But even if no-one is murdered, injured, tortured, imprisoned or
spited because of
'er political ideas such
countries can still be antidemocratic in that they exclusively allow
or disallow certain political parties to exist, or certain political
opinions to be made, or not to be made, public.
From the normative
perspective there is no essential difference between the situation
in which a majority of the citizens is in favor of a
one-party state, or in which such a majority is in favor of
outlawing one party. In a majoritarian democracy this criterion
may be believed to be sufficient, but no majority can, normatively
speaking, overrule the rights of people belonging to
minorities, political or otherwise.
If, and to the extent that, the people concerned respect other people's
rights of personhood and do not
practise or preach the violent overthrow of a democratic government that
respects people's
extrinsic rights,
the state must respect their rights too, however repugnant their
political (or other) ideas or behavior may be or may be felt to be.
Moreover, one must not discriminate against such people, that is, one must
not treat them differently in a context which is not political, or which is
political but irrelevant with respect to their convictions nevertheless.
Political authoritarianism is not the prerogative of
antidemocratic minorities, it can also be exercised by so-called
'democratic' majorities. Rather than being the dictatorship,
subordination and symbol imposition of one person or clique, it
is then that of a democratic majority or a class comprising the
majority of the population. Also in the latter case the state is
used as an instrument for the exclusive furtherance of one
political ideology among a number of two or more conflicting
ones. But there are democrats who seriously hold that this is
legitimate, granted that the group in question represents 51% or
67% of the population. Their majoritarian conception of democracy
is closely related to the silly, majoritarian conception
of culture or national culture. To explain this
resemblance let us first look at the culture side of it.
Some people seem to be very sure that the citizens of a
particular country, or the inhabitants of a particular region or
the 'original' inhabitants of that region have a certain culture
distinct from all other cultures. But if they are right at all,
it can only mean that most citizens or inhabitants think, feel
and behave in a certain way. Yet, if it were just the majority
of a population which completely determined what 'the culture'
of that population would be, many forms of art would not belong
to that population's culture either. Going to the opera, for
instance, would probably not be part of that country's or
region's culture. And while there might be a particular language
essential to that culture, most poetry in that language would
probably not be part of it. This is the dilemma of majoritarian
culture (that is, of the majoritarian conception of culture).
Now, similarly, it is the dilemma of majoritarian democracy that
if a majority could decide and do whatever it liked to decide or do, this
would be antidemocratic insofar as such decisions or acts infringed other
people's
extrinsic freedom or treatment as
equals.
The state should either represent all citizens or no-one at
all; or when it represents a part of the citizens, other
citizens should be represented, or have the same chance of being
represented, another time. To constantly represent only a part
of the citizens, for example, by propagating one political
ideology among conflicting ideologies as the official one, and
by using the phraseology and emblems of one political party as
those of the state, may be democratic in a majoritarian sense,
it certainly is not in an inclusive sense, unless the ideology
concerned is that of ideological or
thought-related, anthropic inclusivity
itself.
Politico-economic ideologies are often aimed at certain
(socioeconomic) classes of society, also when they purport to
strive for a classless society. A distinction made in this
connection is the one between the class which is or was, legally
speaking, propertied and the class which is or was, legally
speaking, propertyless (not seldom equated with the class of
workers, or of workers, peasants and students). An inclusive
ideology, on the other hand, must be aimed at all classes of
society or at a classless society. Ideologies which are only
useful for its adherents because they serve the exclusive
interests of their own socioeconomic class have to be considered
exclusivistic.
While the power of political ideologies waxes and wanes, it
is the necessity of the state's politico-ideological and class-neutral
inclusivity which invariably remains. Ideological totalitarianism
cannot preserve the appearance of unity forever, for
where citizens actually adhere to conflicting, political or
other, beliefs, ideological oppression and discrimination must
sooner or later lead to insurrections: sooner, later or,
neutrally, at the right moment.
